Shiraz and A Throw of Dice, Watermans Arts Centre, 23 & 24 July 2011

Hopefully the BFI members among you have entered the ballot for Light of Asia tickets – fingers crossed you get them, too. But there is also a chance to catch director Franz Osten’s two other collaborations with screenwriter Niranjan Pal in the mini-season curated by the South Asian Cinema Foundation. The Watermans Arts Centre in Brentford, Middlesex will be showing Shiraz (1928) and A Throw of Dice (1929) at the end of the month, no ballot necessary.

I’m very fond of the Watermans, so I’m happy to say that they have told me they will be screening 35mm prints of both films, but I’m still waiting to hear about any potential musical accompaniment. I’ll update this post when I know more. But either way, these are classics of Indian cinema, forming a trilogy with Light of Asia. Shiraz tells the love story behind the construction of the Taj Mahal and A Throw of Dice is another romance, taken from an episode in the Mahabarata in which two kings gamble to win the love of a young woman. You may remember a few years back that the composer Nitin Sawhney wrote a new soundtrack for a restoration of A Throw of Dice, which was released theatrically.

Shiraz screens at the Watermans Arts Centre at 4.30pm on Saturday 23 July and A Throw of Dice is on Sunday 24 July at 7.15pm. Tickets cost £10 or less for concessions or members, and are available here.